Moving to the unknown (San Fransisco)- help needed? (San Francisco: apartments, rentals)

[amelie1980]

My partner and I are moving to SF later this year (due to an opportunity at his workplace) and it is very unlikely, due to cost that we will be able to visit the area prior to the move

We live in he Midlands, UK at the moment and I really have very little idea what it is like. I have done lots of searching on google and reading of books, but find a lot of what is said very contradictory - especially when it comes to identifying good and not so good neighbourhoods.

I am hoping that someone can give me an honest overview of the area, as a place to live, work, socialise & raise a family in.

We are both approaching 30, have 2 cats and would have a budget of circa $2000 a month for rented accomodation.

We are very open people with a huge passion for food, wine, going places, meeting new people etc, but would want to feel that we are living in a nice and safe area. Our move will be on an indefinate basis which both excites me but I also feel that we have a real limited insight into the real San Francisco.

Can anybody help????

[amelie1980]

thats San Francisco and not San Fransisco - eek, great start!!

[Archan]

Is the job in San Francisco or in the San Francisco area? What type of area would you like to live in? Do you like the pace of city living or do you prefer a quieter more suburban area? If you give us a little more information of your preferences we would be able to make more suggestions.

The Bay Area is a great place to live with great restaurants and of course with Napa/Sonoma so close how can you go wrong with the wine!

[amelie1980]

Hello, thank you your response, and the Bay Area looks like a good option.
The job is is SF itself but we are very open to living a little further out and commuting in. At present we live in the city centre and have done for the last 5 years, and ready for a change I guess. Then again i do not think it particularly fair on SF to compare it to Birmingham!?

What is important is that the area we live in is easily accessible to the centre, has a buzz about it, and has great bars, restaurants etc.

Is the general concensus that you get more apartment/house for your money in the Bay Area?

I know a very general, asked many times question, but what is SF like as a city? I have lived in Europe - Brussels & Paris, and know that it will be very different...
I have visited the US only a few times - Vegas twice and New York and appreciate that it is nothing like either place...generally is it deemed a nice place to live? I have heard and read such a mixture of things that it is hard to get a real feel for the place.

Many thanks in advance, amy

[rah]

SF is definitely seen as a good place to live in general, even if to some it's only a nice place for the natural setting (most people like it for much more than just that though).

SF is the second largest city and metro out of NYC, Las Vegas and SF. SF is the most diverse metro out of the three too, with NYC not far behind. You were asking about good/nice areas too, so the general crime overview is that SF's crime rate is over twice that of NYC's (nearly twice as high as NYC's violent crime rate, and nearly three times higher than NYC's property crime rate), and slightly higher than Las Vegas (although they all have their different bad and very nice areas)...though seeing that NYC is a gigantic city, it's bad areas will mostly be much larger in size than any in SF or Las Vegas, despite NYC having a significantly lower crime rate per capita than either of those cities.

As far as price, SF is going to be about the same as NYC overall from what i've seen/heard, though Manhattan alone is definitely more expensive than SF. Las Vegas is the cheapest.

What kind of other things have you heard about SF? Do you want info about specific neighborhoods? It's kind of hard to give you an idea of the city without writing a novel, so do you have any specific things you want to know about? Also, telling us your price range will help us too.

[vallelygirl]

San Francisco is a fun place to visit as a tourist, a fun place to work, and a fun place to go to dinner at.

It is, however, to me, not a place to live or to raise children in the future. It has way too many liberal diversities and freaks are everywhere. It's dirty, busy, noisy, lots and lots of homelessness, and, did I mention FREAKS everywhere?

[Archan]

What type of weather would you like? The Bay Area has a lot of microclimates. The Richmond District and the Avenues would have very dreary weather. If you move to the East Bay, say the Walnut Creek area, you would be looking at very hot summers. There really is no snow in the Bay Area so you don't have to worry about that (they might get a light powder every couple years on the nearby mountain tops).

Here is a website for you to check out apartments and prices. Go to the floorplan section to see prices. It has reviews from current and former tenants. Take them with a grain of salt.

California apartments and apartment reviews - ApartmentRatings.com

Usually, the further you commute the more you get for your money. If your partner will be working in the city, you can always take BART (transit system) in and meet him for dinner/drinks/clubs.

Here is the website for the BART system for you to check out.

BART - Bay Area Rapid Transit

[Oakland City]

Originally Posted by vallelygirl

San Francisco is a fun place to visit as a tourist, a fun place to work, and a fun place to go to dinner at.

It is, however, to me, not a place to live or to raise children in the future. It has way too many liberal diversities and freaks are everywhere. It's dirty, busy, noisy, lots and lots of homelessness, and, did I mention FREAKS everywhere?

Yeah because all of San Francisco is just like Market Street.

[clongirl]

Here's just a brief list of generally good neighborhoods in no particular order...the majority of the city is safe.

Sunset/Inner Sunset/Parkside/Outer Sunset
Richmond/Inner or Outer Richmond/Laurel Heights/Anza Vista
Marina/Cow Hollow
Japantown
Nob Hill
Noe Valley
Presidio
Castro, Duboce Triangle
Twin Peaks
Russian Hill

Not so nice areas would be ..
Sometimes listed as "lower Pacific Heights"
Tenderloin
Mission (particularly around the 20's ie 20th street and on up)
Bayview/Hunters Point
Excelsior
Ingleside.
Lower Haight/Haight (depends)

These are general guidelines when looking for apartments..If you look at a map of SF..the lower southeast part of the map is generally not the best of neighborhoods. If the price sounds too good to be true..it always is when looking for rentals.

[amelie1980]

Thank you all for your responses they are really helpful and informative - it is appreciated, and has given us lots of food for thought!
The crime rate was a little shocking but then i guess you have to put it into context - taking into account size of the city etc, personal experiences, and the fact that there will be certain areas of the cite that you would generally avaoid anyway - as with any big city!

location wise - we are actively looking at some of the areas listed in the last response, and also in parts of the HUGE bay area. We are also coming over now in late Summer to explore and get a feel for the place.


Thanks again amy!!